Special Showing

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

Saturday, June 17 at 2pm

Bright Young Things: Exploring the World Around Us is a continuation of our monthly family friendly film series, and presented as part of Science on Screen®, an initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE, with major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION.

There will be an introduction by Williams College Professor of Physics William Wootters, asking the question, "Does The Past Actually Exist."

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

There will be an introduction by Williams College Professor of Physics William Wootters, asking the question, "Does The Past Actually Exist."

Bill Preston and Ted Logan are two totally excellent dudes facing one most heinous history exam. With the help of Rufus an ultra-cool messenger in a time traveling phone booth, the triumphant two-some bag a bevy of historical heavy weights like the "Bodacious Philosopher Socrates, "One Very Excellent Barbarian" Genghis Khan, the "Short Dead Dude" Napoleon and Noah's Wife Joan of Arc to stage the most hysterical high school project ever. History's about to be rewritten by two guys who can't even spell.

Bill Wootters teaches physics at Williams College and does research in the foundations of quantum mechanics and in quantum information theory (the theory underlying the prospect of a quantum computer). One idea that has emerged from his work (with collaborators) is the possibility of “quantum teleportation,” a process in which a quantum state is transported from one object to another without travelling through the intervening space. Bill has not done any research on time travel, but he has seen it happen in several movies.

Does The Past Actually Exist?
In the movie, high-school students Bill and Ted use a time machine to travel into the past, where they find famous historical figures whom they bring back to the 1980’s to participate in their history report. The notion of time travel raises all sorts of interesting questions, beginning with an intriguing philosophical question: does the past actually exist? If it doesn’t exist, how could anyone go there, and how could Beethoven, for example, still be available for Bill and Ted’s report? Physics doesn’t answer this question, nor does it tell us whether, even if the past does exist, one could build a time machine to get there. But it does have a few things to say on the subject. For example, our current understanding of the laws of physics tells us how, in principle, we who are living now could travel to the year 3000. (It would not be easy! We would have to travel at nearly the speed of light.) Getting ourselves back to the present moment would be harder, maybe impossible, but physicists over the years have been happy to publish ideas about that problem as well.

Director: Stephen Herek

Rating: PG

Runtime: 1 hour 30 minutes

Genre: Comedy, Adventure

“Extremely silly and good natured.”

– Time Out

Bright Young Things: Exploring the World Around Us is a continuation of our monthly family friendly film series, and presented as part of Science on Screen®, an initiative of the COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE, with major support from the ALFRED P. SLOAN FOUNDATION.

Cinemail

Sign up for our weekly email

About

Celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2016, Images Cinema is
a nonprofit, independent movie theater presenting a wide array
of films to the Berkshires year-round. We are driven by our
love of cinema and dedicated to the exploration of film as an
art form and a source of entertainment.